British runner Jamie McDonald says he was attacked in Banff Tuesday night, where he was celebrating New Year’s Eve three quarters of the way into his cross-Canada trek to raise money for charity.

The attack happened sometime after midnight, and McDonald lost a bag containing video footage from his almost year-long journey from St. John’s to Vancouver, as well as his credit cards and other possessions.

“I’m trying to run a marathon a day. I’ve just hit the Rocky Mountains which is probably the toughest part of the journey, and this is an absolutely huge blow,” he told the BBC.

So I just got beat up, I couldn't give a shit but my MAN BAG that got left behind, has my world behind it. Video footage and more….

After a huge outpouring of support online and in Banff, his bag was ultimately located, with his muggers evidently reconsidering the wisdom of the robbery.

“Although I’d been told my bag had been taken, it appears that whoever did so had a change of mind, as the bag was found at/near the place I left after the attack,” McDonald wrote on his blog Wednesday.

Thank you all for your support. I just want to say that all that can be done is being done and I'm OK physically, just a bit shaken up.

The 27-year-old runner started his journey in early March to raise money for British and Canadian children’s hospitals, running the equivalent of 200 marathons dressed as the comic book character The Flash.

As a child, McDonald battled an immune disorder and syringomyelia, a condition affecting the spinal cord, and says his current mission is an attempt to give back. His previous fundraiser had him cycling over 22,000 kilometres from Bangkok, Thailand, to his hometown of Gloucester in England.

To find out more about McDonald’s trek or to donate to his efforts, see his website. A news segment from CBC Calgary, broadcast mere days before the attack, is embedded below.